The Internet is a worldwide decentralized network of computers having the ability to communicate with each other. The Internet has gained broad recognition as a viable medium for communicating and interacting across multiple networks. Until fairly recently, the Internet was used mostly for communicating via electronic mail (e-mail), or for locating and transferring data through such services as "Gopher", "WAIS", "Archie", and "File Transfer Protocol" (FTP). The programs for locating and transferring data typically utilized menus and other text-based interfaces.
The World Wide Web (hereinafter the "Web") was created in the early 1990's, and is comprised of servers (computers connected to the Internet) having hypertext documents or Web pages stored therewithin. These Web pages are accessible by client devices (hereinafter "clients") using browser programs (hereinafter "browsers") utilizing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Exemplary browsers include Netscape Navigator.TM. (Netscape Communications Corporation, Mountain View, Calif.) and Internet Explorer.RTM. (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.). Browsers typically provide a graphical user interface for retrieving and viewing Web pages hosted by HTTP servers.
A Web page, using a standard page description language known as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), typically displays text and graphics, and can play sound, animation, and video clips. HTML provides basic document formatting and allows a Web page developer to specify hypertext links (typically manifested as highlighted text) to other servers and files. When a user selects a particular hypertext link, the Web browser reads and interprets the address, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) associated with the link, connects the client with the Web server at that address, and makes a TCP/IP request for the Web page identified in the link. The server then sends the requested Web page to the client in HTML format which the browser interprets and displays to the user.
A URL gives the type of resource being accessed (e.g., Gopher, WAIS) and optionally the path of the file sought. For example: resource://host.domain/path/filename, wherein the resource can be "file", "http", "gopher", "WAIS", "news", or "telnet". Through the Web, users can access the various Internet services, including Gopher, Telnet, and FTP.
The World Wide Web has become a popular medium for the exchange of information and for electronic commerce. Literally millions of new Web pages have been developed in the past several years as more and more individuals, businesses and organizations have discovered the power of Internet marketing. Increasingly however, many of these Web pages become "stale" because their contents are not being updated on a regular basis. One reason for this is that many Web page content providers rely on technical personnel to perform the steps necessary to update a Web page. Many content providers lack the skill required to update a Web page or may not have access to the server hosting a Web page for security or other reasons. Granting content providers access to a server hosting a Web page is considered a security risk because with such access often comes the rights to delete, copy, move and rename files and directories on the server. As a result, significant time delays may often occur between the development of fresh Web page content and the actual implementation of the fresh content within the Web page.
A variety of Web page creation and editor tools such as Page Mill.RTM. (Adobe Systems Incorporated, San Jose, Calif.) or Front Page.RTM. (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.), which require little if any knowledge about the various Web page programming languages, are available. Unfortunately, updating a Web page with these programs typically requires an uploading procedure, such as FTP, to send the new information to the Web page. FTP procedures can often be time consuming and somewhat difficult. Furthermore, unless a content provider has been granted access to the server hosting the Web page, the content provider may not be able to utilize FTP procedures. Consequently, presently-used methods of updating a Web page may result in time delays between the creation of content and the actual publishing of the content in a Web page.
Another drawback of FTP is that, once granted access, a user is often empowered with significant and potentially destructive capabilities with respect to files residing on a server. Consequently, FTP access is typically tightly controlled and not widely granted. As a result, large numbers of Web page content providers, especially non-technical persons, typically do not have access to Web pages for which they are responsible for maintaining content therein.